Melt
by dress without sleeves
Summary: A woman contemplates changes in herself, and the memories that are so blurred that she is unsure of who she is. Anck-Su-Namun, or Meela? What does it take, what does it mean, for someone to lose touch with themselves?


**Author's Notes:** I'm actually really interested in Anck-Su-Namun. I mean, I understand the whole, "I'm willing to kill for love," thing, but then she went evil and tried to take over the world, etc. Which is definitely not cool.

But why? What, exactly, made her turn so evil? When did the fight for love become a fight for power?

Anyway, this is just me trying to get a good look inside of a woman who waited for a millennia to make out with a gross, slimy, bug-infested undead mummy . Because, hey, _that_ takes dedication.

_**Melt**_

Sometimes I wonder if I'm going crazy. But that's just stupid, isn't it? Doesn't it make perfect sense that I am the reincarnated version of an ancient Egyptian concubine?

Well, I guess when it's put that way it sounds a little odd. But I can _feel _it, inside, and the dreams…the dreams are so vivid and so _real_ and I can feel the knife slicing through Seti's flesh, wrenching into his gut and twisting in the blood, writing words in the liquid and leaving a mark, a pocket of death where blood can't touch anymore.

I can hear his scream of surprise, and see the look of shocked betrayal, hear Nefertiri – Evelyn? – shout for the Medjai to help, to somehow save her father…

But he is already dead. He has been dead since the day he was born. Dying, because isn't that all that life is? And then there was Imhotep, always there, always there in the world with all this knowledge and his power and just waiting for my birth, waiting for me to come along and fill his soul with love.

She jumped off the balcony.

Nefertiri, I mean.

I saw her body fall, watched it soar through the air as she sailed towards the ground, until suddenly she laughed and spun and began to fly madly around the room with her eyes red and evil and her laugh sinister. And she beckoned me, beckoned me to fight her, told me that she would kill me as I had killed Seti…

But then suddenly there was the lone Medjai who heard her scream and pulled her from the air. And she forced herself to cry and look normal, because no one could see her in her evil form, they couldn't know. And she smiled at the bodyguard and he smiled back and I thought, _Isn't that funny?_ Because her body fit so perfectly in his arms it seemed like it was not the first time it had ever been there.

I idly wondered if I should tell Seti, just to get the princess in trouble, but then I remembered he was dead, very, very dead and Imhotep and I were going to die, too, unless we did something quick.

Then her eyes were on me, the hatred spilling out of them and onto the floor, scuttling towards me with its fangs and venom and I knew it would eat me alive if I didn't get out of there, quick. And her Medjai smiled at her, never knowing the evil she was committing before his very eyes, but vision can be deceiving and as she pretended to weep into his shoulder I could see the tears were actually forming words: _Die, Anck-Su-Namun_ and I knew that was what I had to do, because the Hate was getting closer and so were the Medjai.

So I told him to run, to resurrect me when I was safe from the vengeful princess, and his eyes were opened the wrong way because he didn't see me, he saw only what I had done, saw the blood on my hands and the evil in my knife and it somehow pleased him when I passed my hand over his face because he could suck the life out of me that way and make my death less painful.

_My body no longer is his temple,_ I told them, the Medjai, as they stared at me. And my voice rang through the palace and I heard everyone start laughing, laughing, laughing because who was I kidding? I was not a person, I belonged to the Pharaoh and he would _kill_ me…

But he was dead, wasn't he? He was dead, right?

But no, because there he was, laughing as the fierce blade that had recently imbrued his own breast dove into my skin and swam in my blood. He pointed at me, mockingly, and asked, _What have you won?_

And what had I? What had I won? My freedom?

But death is not freedom, it is just a larger cage…

Had I won Imhotep?

But he was gone now, and hadn't I had him in the first place?

Had I beaten Nefertiri? Somehow overcome her innocent look, and her happy childhood; beaten her with the murder of her father instead of letting him grow old?

And yet she still had her Medjai, still had his love and that would be enough…

And then there was my mother, dancing in the blood that coughed from my mouth and onto the cold stone floor, and she was so sad, so sad, smearing the paint on my arms just as Imhotep had done and whispered, _Murder, murder, murder,_ writing it in the red that burst forth from me, writing it and somehow it stayed, the watery substance hesitating around the words as though not wanting to erase the image.

My father was there, too, standing before me with a coldness I had never seen as a child, chanting with my mother: _murder, murder, murder,_ and of course it was murder because I'd meant to kill Seti, hadn't I?

Or had it been a game? Had I lost control? Had I used the knife, or had I hit him over the head with something? I can't remember now, but I just remember the scream, the betrayal and then Nefertiri was falling with red eyes…

And even then I knew it was not over, it was not over and everyone here had unfinished business. Someday we would all return and face one another – Nefertiri, Imhotep, and I, and perhaps Seti – and then it would happen again and again and again because how do you finish murder? How do you make it final?

When I am not back then, though, when I am just me and not her and we are not the same…when I am just the little girl from Egypt who likes to play with snakes and hates the dark…then I remember another face, a face that is not Imhotep's or Nefertiri's or even Seti's. But it is a familiar one, although I cannot place it, the face of a laughing man with dark eyes and a handsome face. And he gently kisses my lips and my heart swells and I realize: _I love this man._

But it is not my Priest, not my Priest, not my Priest…

I remember that the police were looking for me, looking and looking and looking because this man was dead, this man that I loved, and I think I killed him.

I do not remember now, except that he screamed as well and the hurt on his face was greater than Seti's had been.

Was he Seti, reincarnated? Was that why I killed him? How did I do it? I do not remember…_so much blood, murder murder murder_…

Three. Three people, on my count, that I have killed. Seti, the dark man, and Evelyn.

Is it four? Is it four because, in essence, I killed Nefertiri as I killed Evelyn?

Four, then. I have killed four.

_Murder murder murder…_

But I have only died once. I have only died once, although Imhotep twice, and soon we will both rule the world and I can keep all the hatred in a sealed jar. And Nefertiri's eyes will never again be red, or if they are I cannot see it and she cannot reach me. And Seti, Seti can remain in the Underworld…heaven? Hell?

The religions are mixing, and I am unsure of who I am. Anck-Su-Namun or Meela? Concubine or Egyptologist? The studier…or the studied?

It is all blending, meshing, until I am sure there was no dark man and I have only ever loved Imhotep. I have not killed him because he did not exist, and though O'Connell may very well be Nefertiri's Medjai she is dead now, dead, dead, dead and he can't get her back. Never –_ never_ – because now she is with her father and he will take her in his arms and suffocate her in his chest, suffocate her without meaning to and she will be limp and pale and _bloody_…

I am not crazy. I am not crazy but I am dead, I think. I think I have been dead since the day I saw Imhotep, all those years ago. I am dead, and when they try to stab me the knife will go right through me because they cannot kill a dead woman.

And if they can, my blood will spill on the stones and the Gods will laugh and soon the world will cry, cry because there is so much death and blood and knives are everywhere, everywhere…

But death is only the beginning. The beginning of a fresh start and the end of an old one. It is enviable. It is precious. It is all-encompassing and beautiful.

Isn't it?


End file.
